Saturday, December 29, 2012

Army Tank Cake

Army Tank Cake

I made this cake some years ago for my son, who was really into army tanks and airplanes.

I didn't document at the time how I made it, so this is just going off of a distant memory...

The body of the tank cake is made from a square cake. It is in 2 layers, with the bottom layer slightly bigger all around than the top layer. The front and back of the top layer are shaved diagonally down to create the sloped sides.

2 small round cakes (cupcakes) were also made. One, with proper trimming, became the turret on top, while the other was cut in half and used as the front of the rolling tread tires. They are shaved on the top at a diagonal.

Decoration was also simple. Frost with a buttercream frosting, lightly colored with cocoa powder for the tan color. Keep some frosting separate and color a darker brown with more cocoa powder. After frosting the tank all over with the tan color, swirl in the darker brown for the desert camouflage effect.

For wheels I used 5 chocolate sandwich cookies (like Oreos) on each side, and one on top of the turret. (The top of the cookie is pushed into the cake so that it stands on its own).

Treads were made from licorice pieces (I couldn't find licorice ropes, but could get smaller pieces which I just lay next to each other. The gun is a Pirouette cookie, stuck into the cake. Tinted coconut flakes served as the sand. Voila!